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California Fires Force 500,000 From Homes

SAN DIEGO, Oct. 23 — Raging wildfires in southern California have destroyed and estimated 1,300 homes and businesses and have forced as many as a half-million people to evacuate their homes, state and local officials said today. More than 400 square miles of brushland and suburbs have been blackened by more than a dozen separate fires.

Hot, gusting winds made the advancing flames nearly impossible for firefighters to control, officials said. The winds are expected to keep blowing through the day, and perhaps longer.

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A destroyed home in the Rancho Bernardo neighborhood of San Diego.Credit
Monica Almeida/The New York Times

The worst conditions continued to be here in San Diego County, where large sections were under mandatory evacuation orders. County officials said today that “about 1,000” structures had been destroyed since the fires started Sunday. About 300 houses and businesses were destroyed elsewhere, according the governor’s Office of Emergency Management.

A new fire that started on the LaJolla Indian Reservation today in the county spread rapidly and consumed 400 acres of the east side of Palomar Mountain. Some of the evacuees were being housed at the famed observatory at the top of the mountain. North of Los Angeles another fire started about 4 a.m. in the Newhall Pass area near the intersection of Interstate 5 and Highway 14.

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A firefighter battled a a house fire on a hillside in Running Springs, Calif.Credit
Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated Press

Because President Bush declared southern California to be a disaster area, Federal troops and assets were starting to join the evacuation and firefighting effort. About 800 marines from Camp Pendleton, which is north of here, were made available while six C-130 specially modified cargo aircraft were being flown to California to help with firefighting.

Officials appealed to residents outside the evacuated areas to remain at home if possible and to limit their use of cellular phones, to keep highways and communication lines clear for emergency use.

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A firefighter worked to protect Bonita, Calif., near San Diego.Credit
Eric Thayer/Getty Images

“Please stay at home today,” said Jerry Sanders, the mayor of San Diego, in a televised news conference. The mayor also appealed for donations of food, clothing and other supplies for evacuees taking refuge at Qualcomm Stadium, near downtown, whose numbers were expected to increase as evacuations continue.

Ron Roberts, the chairman of the San Diego Board of Supervisors, had said on Monday: “We have a very dangerous, unpredictable situation that is going on. We have, as we’ve noted, we have some of the highest temperatures, some of the driest landscape conditions, some of the most powerful winds; all of the ingredients for a perfect firestorm.”

Speaking this morning, he said that the forecast for shifting winds later in the day “complicates life,” and that there was “nothing in sight” that would promise relief from the hot, dry, windy weather.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said on Monday that 800 National Guard troops would be diverted from duty on the border to assist with evacuation and ground control in the county, and county officials said today that a total of 1,200 to 1,300 Guard personnel were now on duty.

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A burned home yesterday near Fallbrook, Calif.Credit
David McNew/Getty Images

By Monday, the fires comprised a Hydra with at least 15 separate burns in seven counties fed by gale-force winds. It had burned burned some 267,000 acres from Santa Barbara to the Mexican border, but because of the fires’ erratic nature, state officials had difficulty compiling accurate data on the scope of the damage or progress in controlling them. Engines and firefighters from as far as Nevada and Arizona were summoned as resources were stretched to the limit. Houses burned with no firefighters in sight as emergency crews on the ground and in the air struggled to keep up with shifting winds that fanned new fires and made others recede and reignite.

San Diego is particularly haunted by wildfires. The worst one in state history burned nearly 750,000 acres in 2003, destroyed 3,600 homes and other buildings, and killed 24 people across Southern California, with much of the damage and more than a dozen of the deaths in San Diego County.

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A home burning yesterday near Fallbrook, California.Credit
David McNew/Getty Images

Officials there said those memories prompted swift action this time as the latest fire burned in much of the same area and same direction as 2003.

The San Diego Wild Animal Park, a major tourist draw, was closed and the animals were moved to safer quarters while owners of horses throughout northern San Diego also rushed to save their animals.

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Homes burning yesterday at the Valley Oaks mobile home park along near Fallbrook, California.Credit
David McNew/Getty Images

Some of the fires appeared to have been started by downed power lines, but a few were thought to have been caused by arson.

Brush and small trees burned in most cases, but firefighters faced a difficult problem northeast of Los Angeles at the Lake Arrowhead resort, where a forest fire erupted early in the afternoon and added to the plume of smoke hanging over most of the region. Towers of flame tore through houses and other structures there, and water-dropping aircraft did not arrive for a few hours as they fought a larger fire 70 miles away in heavily populated Santa Clarita Valley, a typical dilemma firefighters faced.

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Residents of Santa Clarita in Los Angeles County watched the advance of the Buckweed fire.Credit
Monica Almeida/The New York Times

Officials marveled that there had been just one death, in a fire in southeastern San Diego County on Sunday that also injured several people, including four firefighters. Scenes of residents taking matters into their own hands played out as some fires burned for long periods without a firefighter in sight.

Dozens of men, women and children in Canyon Country, north of Los Angeles, on Monday grabbed shovels and garden hoses and fought flames creeping up a canyon within 50 feet of their homes.

About seven children and young teenagers worked in tandem with their parents as the flames approached their back fences.

“That was hot!” said Steven Driedger, 14, as he examined his scratched legs for signs of a burn. “But I’m fine.”

Steven’s mother, Carolyn Driedger, said the family, along with their neighbors, had been battling the blaze since 4 a.m.

“Our neighborhood has really come together,” Ms. Driedger said, as a firefighting crew finally pulled up in the late morning. “We had to. These are the first official firefighters we’ve seen.”